The Fix Is In: Top Windows Utilities

File Viewers: Open for Business

Windows' Quick View offers extremely limited file viewing functionality. We recommend Quick View Plus or KeyView Pro.

File incompatibilities are a leading cause of mice with toothmarks all over them. The scenario: Under pressure to get a project finished, you receive a long-awaited file after-hours. Huzzah! But when you try to open it, you find it was created in a program your PC doesn't have--and you're ready to start gnawing.

File viewers to the rescue. These handy utilities let you view, print, and copy text from files created by applications you don't have. They even maintain the original version's formatting. They don't, however, let you convert files to a different format. For that, you need a converter like Conversions Plus from DataViz ($100 street price; www.dataviz.com; 800/733-0030; product info no. 650).

Windows 95 and 98 come with a simple file viewer called Quick View, which supports only 31 file types, including .asc, .bmp, .doc, .exe, .ini, .ppt, .wmf, .wri, and .xls file formats. Quick View is essentially a scaled-down version of Quick View Plus from Inso, from whom the product was originally licensed. Some PC users don't need anything more substantial, but if you often receive files you can't open, you should purchase a dedicated file viewer.

We looked at four file viewers, testing them on 15 reasonably common file types, including a Word document, an Excel worksheet, a Macintosh Illustrator file, a PowerPoint presentation, and various image formats. The only file that none could open was a Macintosh Quark document. Panoramic 3.1 handled the most formats, but it's also the most expensive viewer, at $99. When we balanced price against performance, KeyView Pro and Quick View Plus (both priced at $59) tied for the Best Buy.

Quick View Plus from Jasc--the company that distributes Inso's product at the retail level--opened 10 of our 15 test files. It supports an additional 175 file types beyond Windows' meager 31. It also integrates with many Windows applications, kicking in automatically when you click on a file in any such application. Quick View Plus and KeyView Pro were the only two viewers that could handle a .ppt presentation.

In fact, Verity's KeyView Pro 6.5 opened the same 10 test file types as Quick View Plus. Its interface is starkly simple: Drop down the File menu and click Open. Or you can elect to integrate KeyView with your applications so it works automatically when you try to open a file for which you lack the original app.

Panoramic 3.1 from Cimmetry reads big files slowly, but otherwise it works extremely well, with a simple interface that opened 11 of our test file formats--more than any other viewer we tested. It was the only viewer that could open Microsoft Access files and Illustrator files created on a Macintosh. Panoramic's mark-up feature lets you add comments and graphics to viewed files before you print them--without altering the original file.

Drag and View 4.50 from Canyon Software integrates easily with Windows Explorer. It was the only viewer we tested that could handle a Macintosh PhotoShop file. However, Drag and View opened only nine of our test files.

--Michael Goodwin

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KeyView Pro 6.5 street pricing: $43A-$59 Verity 800/787-1166 www.verity.com

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Quick View Plus street pricing: $40A-$59 Jasc 800/622-2793 www.jasc.com

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Drag and View 4.50 street pricing: $30A-$35 Canyon 800/656-5443 www.canyonsw.com

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Panoramic 3.1 street price: $99 Cimmetry 800/361-1904 www.cimmetry.com